


Drive It Like You Stole It

by QueenHarleyQuinn



Category: I Am The Night (TV 2019)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drinking, Driving, Driving Lessons, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Running Away, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-10-30 06:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20809724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenHarleyQuinn/pseuds/QueenHarleyQuinn
Summary: "Fauna returns to the motel room – and honestly, Jay has no idea when she left – with a bundle of fresh fruit in her arms. They’re going to get the opposite of scurvy, that’s how much fruit they’ve been eating. The locals boys like Fauna and tend to gift her things with that easy, islander smile.The local boys do not like him and tend to frown in his general direction. Whatever, he still gets free food out of it."__(Post-series. Slightly AU because Fauna is a little older and Jay is a little younger. Canon divergence because they run away to Hawaii and it's not what they expected.)





	Drive It Like You Stole It

Jay always thought that saying something happened ‘in a blur’ was lazy writing. Does it ever really work like that? Things slipping by, blending together with all the fluidity of an impressionist painting. His soldiering days weren’t like that – most of the time those memories were too painfully vivid. Nothing blended together except for blood and tears.

But, the days that follow him and Fauna after landing in Hawaii pass in a blur. A smudge. A thumb running over fresh ink.

From shitty airplane coffee to finding a motel to squat in for a while, it’s all blended beyond recognition. Jay twirls the car keys around his finger with only the barest idea of how he got them in the first place; the car was cheap and no one wanted it and the idea of  _ not  _ having wheels made his skin itch.

Fauna returns to the motel room – and honestly, Jay has no idea when she left – with a bundle of fresh fruit in her arms. They’re going to get the opposite of scurvy, that’s how much fruit they’ve been eating. The locals boys like Fauna and tend to gift her things with that easy, islander smile.

The local boys do not like him and tend to frown in his general direction. Whatever, he still gets free food out of it.

“Have you moved at all today?” Fauna asks, tossing a mango onto his bed. She sets the rest of the fruit down onto the nightstand between two mattresses.

Jay shakes his head and looks at the bounty of mangoes and papayas and guava. “Christ, we could open up a fruit stand at this rate.”

“One of them tried to give a tuna today. A  _ whole _ fish.”

Jay smirks, “Pretty sure that’s a marriage proposal.”

“Well, I refused.”

“You spinster.”

She does that sort of brief, half smile that she’s perfected. The quickest upturn of her lips. That short little huff of a laugh. Jay can’t see it because he’s looking up at the plain, water stained ceiling as he eats his mango. But he still knows what it looks like.

Fauna kicks off her sandals and falls onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling too. The room doesn’t have a TV, just a crooked watercolor painting on the wall opposite them. Maybe that’s how days get blurry – when you spend hours staring at nothing.

“Jay,” She whispers. His breath catches in his throat when she’s shy like that. It makes him feel small and powerless in a way that’s too real for his liking.

“Hmm?”

She sits up to look at him – cheap, touristy Hawaiian shirt, scruffier face than usual and tired, blue eyes. “Teach me how to drive.”

He blinks, turning and meeting her big, green eyes. He imagined her saying a half dozen things just then, and that was  _ none _ of them.

“What? Now?”

She rolls her eyes, “No,” and she’s done being bashful, “not now. You smell like you’ve been swimming in rum punch.”

He scoffs, interrupting, “You sure do know how to ask a guy for a favor.”

“I walked everywhere in Sparks. Jimmie Lee didn’t have a car.” Her eyes stay trained on him, “I just think it’d be good for me to know how.”

There’s something else buried under those words. They haven’t talked about Sparks or Jimmie Lee or anything really in the past few days. Jay’s only half surprised she brings it up so easily. Light and breezy and factual.

And then he wants to slap himself because, really, he should know better than to underestimate Fauna Hodel.

“Fine.”

Her eyebrows shoot up, “Really?”

“Yeah. Sure. Tomorrow.”

X

“Okay, uh,” Jay says, scrubbing a hand over his face. He hasn’t had anything to drink since three in the morning – it was now  _ two-something _ in the afternoon – but his eyes are still blinking a little slow and his voice comes out clumsy, like it’s hard to put one word after another. He’s a fucking writer, suposedly, he should be able to construct a sentence. Hangover be damned.

“Woah, woah,” his hand shoots out and holds Fauna’s wrist before she can take the car out of park. “Mirrors first,” As fast as his fingers are on her they are gone. A lighting strike of contact. “Can you see the cars behind you?”

She makes a few, small adjustments to the rearview mirror. There’s  _ a _ car behind them, singular, but that’s just how things are on this part of the island. Not too many tourists in this spot, a little bit secluded; and most of the locals around here choose to walk or bike. 

Their car – his car? – is not a good learner car, not really. It’s worn in a lot of places and the alignment feels a little off to Jay. It’s the first time Fauna’s been behind the wheel and he’s the one sweating bullets.

“Okay,” Fauna says, her mouth returning to a flat line. The only girl in the world unimpressed by the prospects of learning how to drive. Like it wasn’t her damn idea. She’s complicated, that way. 

She moves to put the car in reverse and Jay grabs her wrist again, making her jump. “Are we doing this or not?” She asks, annoyed.

“Ground rules,” Jay grinds out, surprising himself. He’s never been a  _ ground rules _ type of guy before, no telling why he should become right now. “We’re not leaving this parking lot,” it’s not really a parking lot, so much as it is a swath of well used dirt, “until I say you’re ready. Got that? And if I say stop, you  _ stop _ . And-”

“Jay,” It’s that soft voice and her big, doe eyes again. They’re in Hawaii, surrounded by all this lush – overflowing leaves and cascading flowers and rich, humid air – but with that look she reduces the entirety of the world to the interior of this car. “Let go of my wrist and let me drive.”

He lets go and he considers chopping his hand off so he’ll  _ stop grabbing her _ . Jesus Christ, that’s what monsters do. He came here to escape that. They both did.

Fauna is finally able to put it in reverse. “Give it a little gas. I’m talking a  _ whisper _ .” Jay says, peering around to make sure there’s no flock of ducklings or newborn baby appearing out of nowhere for Fauna to run over. It’s neurotic but it’s exactly the sort of thing that would happen to them.

She gasses it and it’s a shout as they reel backwards. Fauna hits the break before he can even scream  _ stop _ . They lurch forward, thank you momentum, and Jay can feel his heartbeat in his hands as he balls them into fists. Is that normal? No, probably not.

“Alright,  _ Thunder Road _ , what part of that was a whisper?” 

“I’m trying-”

“Yeah, well how about you try not to kill us. How about you give that one a shot.” He spits out.

And she glares at him with all the menace and fire that eighteen year old girls are known for, “I’m  _ new _ to this, Jay. Next time you’re  _ new _ to something let me know so I can judge you for it in every way possible.”

She could have slapped him and it would have stung less.  _ This _ is new to him. Running away with a girl he’s only known for a few months. God, he hated that – running away makes it sound so romantic, like they’re Bonnie and Clyde. They’re just  _ running _ . Fleeing. This isn’t young, misguided love; this is survival. He hates those two. Who wants to be like Bonnie and Clyde, anyway? They die at the end.

The rumbling engine is the only noise for a while, until Jay prompts her with, “Go again.” It’s quiet and it’s the closest thing to  _ sorry _ he can say.

This time Fauna is tender with the gas. She doesn’t look at him as she pulls at the wheel, straightening out the car.

“Now put it into drive,” He instructs, looking out the window to the clouds gathering in the sky. Even the clouds looked thicker here, less like wispy cotton and more like dollops of whipped cream. Jay’s teeth ache.

There’s just enough room on this patch of dirt for Fauna to start making a slow circuit. As she turns left Jay leans over and flicks the blinker, “Indicate next time, but you’re doing fine.”

She doesn’t say anything at all to that. All that quiet allows him to hear their fragile relationship fracturing like thin ice over a pond. She’s only eighteen yet so good at being frigid and cold when Jay absolutely deserves it. Jay’s all over the place; sharing smiles with her one moment, playing mentor the next, trying everything he can to get his mind to be blank and void and empty. Yelling at her when she makes a simple mistake and – shit, he’s just too fucked up for this. 

He rubs the heel of his palm into his eye, like that’s going to push in all the  _ bad _ that’s oozing out of him.

She eyes him warily as she makes another turn, “Something wrong?”

Jay drops his hand to his lap, “No, no. You’re fine. Keep turning left like that and you’ll be a racecar driver in no time.”

Fauna doesn’t laugh. They continue this loop, endless and boring but so completely necessary because this is new. And new needs practice. 

X

Jay gets into a fight – one that he didn’t start, this time, so at least that’s progress – and his face is inventing new shades of purple to turn. Jay tries to name them as he watches the color shift in the mirror; Wilted lilac,  _ Grapes of Wrath _ , Rotting Eggplant.

Fauna steps into the bathroom with a bucket of fresh ice and a disappointed squint. Wordlessly she grabs a towel and makes an ice pack.

“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t even throw the first punch?” He asks. It’s a small bathroom; grimey and as uncomfortable as any motel bathroom. Ugly pink tile and stained sink and  _ small.  _ Cramped with the two of them there. Fauna sits on the counter to make a little more room and Jay’s head tilts up, automatically. On its own accord. Like a flower facing the sun.

If the flower was a wilted lilac. Trampled on. Broken.

She shakes her head and applies the ice to the side of his face where the nastier bruises are, “No.”

“Well, it’s the truth,” Jay crosses his heart and hopes to die, “I swear.”

Fauna smiles at him, briefly, “Oh, well if you say it’s the truth – hold this,” she moves Jay’s hand for him, having him prop up the ice while she cleans some of the blood off his nose and chin, “then it  _ simply must be _ . You’ve  _ never _ lied before.” Her voice drips with sarcasm, warm like the sun-showers that happens in the middle of the day.

“Are you trying to smear my journalistic integrity?” He mumbles as she takes a damp washcloth and wipes the dried blood away. Shit, the maids are going to  _ hate  _ them.

“You’re a journalist? Since when?”

He laughs, which hurts thanks to the hooligans who thought they'd rearrange his internal organs with thier their fists, “God, you’re cruel.”

She bites her lip, “Sorry.”

He flinches when she applies a little too much pressure near his nose. He can breath okay so he’s pretty sure it’s not broken, but  _ fuck _ is it tender. “Don’t be sorry.”

Those three words suck out all the air from the room. They were too close; she smelled like every wildflower on the island and her fingers on his face were just as soft. They’re face to face and Jay has to grip the counter on either side of her legs in order to avoid doing something stupid and monsterous like resting them on her waist.

And it’s either the awful, all fruit diet or the fact that he got the shit beat out of him just an hour ago, or the whiskey finally sinking it’s claws into him; or it’s a combination of the three that gets Jay’s on the floor, hurling into the toilet. 

Or maybe it’s just him. Maybe he’s just sick of himself.

X

“You look like your going to pass out,” Fauna notes as she drives along the two-lane road. On their left is all this vast greenery, untouched except for the smattering of homes that look like they’d been there forever. To the right was ocean. Nothing but wild, blue ocean.

Jay is digging his fingers into the leather seat of the car, “I’m fine.”

Jay had no good reason to be so anxious. Fauna is turning out to be a competent driver – signaling when she ought to, staying at the speed limit, keeping a safe distance between her and any other car they saw. She’s doing good. 

“Should I pull over?” She asks, already doing so before he can answer. And he’s half glad for it because his tongue chooses that exact moment to stick to the roof of his mouth. He needed fresh air. And a drink. And a bump of coke.

Jesus, he hadn’t thought about coke in weeks. Jesus, what the fuck was this? Delayed withdrawal? Is that even a thing?

Fauna pulls onto the shoulder and Jay is out of the car before she can put it into park. They weren’t quite on a cliff. More like an overly pronounced, rocky hill. In Jay’s mind a cliff was something you could jump from and die. This looked like something you could jump from and break your ankle, maybe. If you’re lucky.

Waves lapped at the rocky shore, mostly calm as Jay struggled to breath. What the fuck was happening? What  _ the fuck _ was-

Fauna guides him to lean against the trunk of the car. And then to sit on it. Her hands, pulling him by the elbow, away from the cliff or hill or whatever it was. 

“Breathe,” She said, taking a deep breath through her nose and waiting for him to copy. They exhaled together. His heart was banging wildly in his chest, a spray of ricocheting bullets. “You’re okay.”

The wind twirls loose strands of her hair and Jay tries to focus on that instead of the collection of dead people behind her. People he killed. Their hair sways in the wind too. Usually they only come out at night, when things are quiet and he’s trying to sleep. It was the middle of the day, and maybe they were here now to remind Jay that they don’t play by any rules.

“Hey,” Fauna says, resting her hands on his jaw, still a little sensitive and purple, “look at me. You’re okay. We’re okay.”

Jay nods. She smooths her thumbs over his cheeks even though he isn’t crying. He feels like he should be, though.

There’s freckles on her face. Sunspots he’s never noticed before – not that he’d have any reason to notice before. But now he’s been given permission. To look at her, and only her, like that might make everything okay. He counts the freckles, wondering if they’re from the time on the island or if they’ve always been there.

And then he looks at her eyes; sea glass, that’s what he thinks every time he sees them. They look like pieces of sparkling sea glass. Jesus, no wonder every boy on the island is in love with her. Ocean eyes framed by long lashes. How could anyone resist?

He leans back, out of her touch and stares up at the sky. The trunk and rear window is hot against his back but it’s nice, almost loosens some of the tension he’s carrying. His heart is steadier, only skipping a beat here and there. He closes his eyes and just lets the sun wash over him for a moment.

“Let’s go home,” Fauna says, before she can think better of it. They don’t have a home, they have a motel room.

Where’s home, anyway?

X

They split a sandwich for dinner, at a little bar not too far from the motel. The bartender glares at Jay, which seems to be how things usually work between Jay and bartenders, but he doesn’t throw him or Fauna out so whatever offensive thing he did must not have been so bad.

Neither of them are very hungry but this is better than going back to the motel room to stare at the walls. There’s no sailors here, nobody looking to break Jay’s jaw, so actually it’s kind of boring here. But maybe that’s good.

“What’re we doing here?” Fauna asks, stealing a sip from his drink and finding that she does  _ not _ like it. Her nose scrunches up as she pushes the glass back in his direction.

“Eating.” Jay mumbles, though he hasn’t touched the plate in twenty minutes.

She rolls her eyes, “No. I mean  _ here _ . Hawaii.”

Maybe they were running away from answering that question as much as they were running away from L.A.

They had tried to stay away from each other that night, after they parted ways in a sea of fog and police officers in riot gear. A clean break. Jay would find some hole to crawl into, maybe he’d write her but he probably wouldn’t. They’d think about each other and the horrors they witnessed and how hard it is to be separated from the only other person who understands you and your pain. They’d scrounge their surroundings for something that resembled a normal life.

But then, only a few hours later, Jay had been driving toward the 5, trying to slip away into nothingness. That’s when he saw her, on the side of the road and she too was trying to slip away into nothingness.

He honked at her and she didn’t even jump. 

“I don’t know.” He replies, his voice too raw and honest. It’s only seven o’clock; if they start this conversation now the rest of the night will be dedicated to it. “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t know.”

They were here because Tamar made it seem easy. They were here because once upon a time Fauna had compared the island to heaven, and they were hoping it could be true again. They were here because they were.

Someone drops a few coins into the jukebox and something sappy and slow starts playing. Jay downs the rest of his drink before standing, “Do you want to dance or do you want to go stare at the ceiling?”

She blinks up at him and he hopes that’s not fear in her eyes – God, he’d rather die than have her be afraid of him. He feels stupid, standing with his hand offered out to her like they’re at the prom, but then she stands and he doesn’t feel stupid anymore. She leads him to the dance floor with a slight blush on her face and that’s how he knows it’s not fear; it’s just nerves.

And maybe it’s all backwards but Jay ends up with his head resting on Fauna’s shoulder as they drift and spin, aimlessly.

X

She’s the one who drives them to the airport, a few months later. Well, not all the way to the airport. They abandon the car on the side of the road and leave the keys in the glove box in case there’s  _ another _ set of hopeless runaways in need of a car. Pay it forward, so to speak.

They walk the remaining mile. Jay carries their suitcase; they didn’t arrive with much anyway, so it was easy to pair down to the essentials. Fauna looks back at the car, a little fond. A little sad. 

“Kind of liked that car. Sort of attached to it,” she muses.

Jay smirks, “It’s a real piece of shit.”

She shrugs, “Yeah, but it runs, and I thought it was kind of charming,” and then she grabs his empty hand and twines their fingers.

**Author's Note:**

> I probably wouldn't have posted/written this if it weren't from the (surprising) amount of encouragement on my last I Am The Night fic, so thank you to everyone who kudos/commented on that. (Especially to JackEPeace - Thanks so much for your kind words!!)
> 
> Thanks again for reading this!!


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